ACTION woman Victoria Spurgeon has just completed a gruelling two-day orienteering ski race in mountainous terrain and finished third from an international line-up.

ACTION woman Victoria Spurgeon has just completed a gruelling two-day orienteering ski race in mountainous terrain and finished third from an international line-up.

The 30-year-old from Tattingstone and her Swiss husband, Daniel, 32, are no strangers to expeditions – through their world cycling adventures.

But with the weather during the Mammut International Mountain Marathon (MIMM) changing from fog, giving visibility of less than 50 metres at times, wet, cold and snow blizzards to boot, it was enough to daunt the most intrepid of souls.

In addition to the natural elements on Sarognin in the Swiss Alps and surviving overnight camp at 5,700ft, the pair had to carry all their own equipment – tents, sleeping bags, stove, food and emergency goods.

Such were the conditions for the weekend marathon that many competitors either had to abandon the course or pack in because they got lost.

Different categories of varying routes and distance were set up and Victoria said that she and Daniel chose the middle easy, 65k over two days with "easy" orienteering skills.

"On some of the routes detours were set up because of the bad weather conditions and so I'm sure that had the weather not been so foul and so many teams hadn't given up or got lost, we wouldn't have been so high up in the rankings.

"The inclement weather turned to our advantage in the end," she added.

Victoria and Daniel are used to adverse conditions from their world cycling adventures so getting in to cold wet clothes and boots on the second day of the MIMM was not pleasant, but bearable.

"As soon as we began moving we soon warmed up," she said.